I've been meaning to make this one for a
while now. It can be done as either a "bubble loaf" with little round balls of dough coated in poppyseeds or "money bread" with flat ribbons of dough coated in brown sugar and currants. I opted for the savoury poppyseed variety.
The recipe specifies using
2 cups of butter for coating the dough pieces. This is clearly insane. I melted 1 stick (ie. 1/2 a cup) and still had about half of it left over by the time I was done. Two cups would've been ludicrous!
Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe. Although I did toss in ~250g of sourdough discard. Not because the recipe needed it, but because the starter desperately needed to be fed. And, to be honest, the starter does act as a decent conditioner that makes the dough a bit nicer and the finished bread a bit more resistant to going stale, so... why not?
And, while I kept the rest of the ingredients the same, I did slightly change the way that I handled some of them. Most notably, I omitted the butter until I was about halfway through kneading the dough and
then worked it in. My understanding is that, although it doesn't necessarily make a huge difference, this can often help with gluten formation.
Poppyseed Bubble Loaf
Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads
Ingredients
- 800-900g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour, divided
- 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
- 250g sourdough discard (optional)
- 2 c. water
- 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2/3 c. dry milk powder
- 6-8 Tbsp. butter, divided
- 1/3 c. poppyseeds
Directions
- Combine the yeast with 400g of the flour.
- Add the sourdough discard (if using) and the water and stir to combine.
- Add the salt, sugar, and milk powder and mix vigorously for ~150 strokes.
- Add 400g of the remaining flour ~50g at a time.
- Turn the dough out and knead for 5-10 minutes, using the remaining flour to dust as needed to achieve a soft, supple dough that does not stick too much.
- Smear 2 Tbsp. of the butter on the work surface and work the dough on top of it for another 5-10 minutes, grandually working the butter into the dough.
- Knead until dough is smooth and elastic. Small bubbles forming just below the surface is an excellent sign!
- Round the dough and place it in a covered bowl to rise at room temperature.
- Once dough is fully risen (~1 hour), knock it back.1
- Melt the remaining butter and use some of it to grease a large (10-cup) Bundt pan.
- Place the poppyseeds in a shallow dish.
- Pinch off a small portion of dough, shape it into a ball, dip it in the melted butter, and then dip it in the poppyseeds. Place the ball seed-side-up in the prepared pan.
- Repeat with remaining dough.
- Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Bake at 180°C (350°F) until done.2
-
Variations
Monkey Bread
Ingredients
- 800-900g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour, divided
- 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
- 250g sourdough discard (optional)
- 2 c. water
- 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2/3 c. dry milk powder
- 6-8 Tbsp. butter, divided
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- 1/2 c. currants, soaked and drained
Directions
- Make the dough as directed above.
- Once ready for shaping, press or roll the dough into a large, flat rectangle and cut into ribbons ~2cm wide and 8cm long.
- Mix the brown sugar and the currants into the melted butter.
- Dip the dough ribbons into the butter mixture and toss into the pan. (Clayton says to do this "haphazardly", but I think that trying to make a nice pattern with them would be pretty.)
At this point, you're meant to begin shaping the loaf. I had errands to run, however, so I asked TF to knock the dough back at the 1-mark and then put it back in its bowl to complete a second rise there. After an additional hour, I knocked it back a second time and
then shaped the loaf. So the final proof was actually it's
third rise, rather than the second as called for in the original recipe. Doing it this way certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the results any! So, feel free to adjust the rises to suit your schedule. Putting it in the fridge to retard it somewhat could also be an option. Bread is really quite flexible! Figure out a method that works for you.
Back
This can be a little tricky to judge with this loaf. Clayton actually says to bake it at 190°C (375°F) for 1 hour. I thought that sounded excessive. Especially for how well-risen the loaf was. I also worried that the slightly higher oven temperature would cause it to burn on the outside before it had baked through in the centre. So I lowered the temperature to 180°C (350°F) and baked it for just 30 minutes. The top pieces were certainly wonderfully browned and beautifully baked. Hopefully it ended up fully cooked in the centre as well. I will admit, I did not end up testing it as I was a little distracted by the time it was going in the oven.
Back